British Military Deploys Skynet

rowleyrw writes "The BBC are reporting, 'The British military is set to take one of its most significant steps into the digital age with the launch of the first Skynet 5 satellite. The spacecraft will deliver secure, high-bandwidth communications for UK and "friendly" forces across the globe.' It's not yet the Skynet of Terminator, but how long before it becomes self aware?"

Bandwidth

[baffled]

Anyone have an idea of how much bandwidth it provides?

No Guns = Dull Terminator Film

[MrSteveSD]

It would be a bit of a dull film since there are really no guns in the UK. You can't want into a shop and buy some and most police don't carry them. It would be down to fist fights or knife fights.

Re:Bandwidth

[JacksonG]

The published figure is approx 700 MHz of satellite bandwidth availible in total. The bandwidth of the individual trunks are subject to classificiation under the official secrets act. I actually worked on skynet5 and the list of bits of information that is classified is ridiculous but I can say that it's nowhere near as much bandwidth as you might think.

J

Re:Swami says...

[David_Shultz]

B movies? B MOVIES?

Terminator 2 was, according to many sources, one of the greatest movies of all time. It was in my opinion the greatest action movie of all time. And, it dealt with the topics of artificial intelligence and time travel better than most other movies sci-fi movies. On top of that, Cameron's presentation of the dichotomy between hard/soft AI as presented between the T800 and the T1000 was staggeringly prescient -it mirrors exactly the development that occurred in the actual world of AI, as research progressed from classical, rigid AI to the more fluid, behavior based AI.

The film tackles time travel, artificial intelligence, consciousness, human emotion, human nature, fate versus free will, and other topics. If you are willing to carry the ideas it presents to you, there is a lot of meaningful content there to think about. If you aren't willing to put in that intellectual effort, you get an incredible action movie anyways. But the philosophy is there. For example, John Conner asks the Terminator if it hurts when he gets shot, to which the Terminator responds "I sense injuries -the data could be called pain." There is a lot of discussion that could evolve from this single line. In what way is his "pain" different from our "pain", for example? The character's albeit brief lines are charged with content "I know now why you cry, but it's something I could never do" -we are given a glimpse into the mind of a Terminator, who we now know is capable of comprehending human emotion at an entirely logical level.

Another line: "it's in your nature to destroy yourselves" Again, there is so much discussion that can evolve from this line, using the film as a backdrop. This is the fate versus free will theme manifested on the social level. The main theme of the movie is the characters attempting to forge their destiny (freewill) in the face of fate, but we are also confronted with the fate of perhaps humankind. This movie really can make you think, if you are willing to. Another line, "The unknown future rolls toward us, and for once I face it with a sense of hope. Because if a machine -a Terminator- can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too."

I could go on, but I don't think I could do the movie justice. Go watch it -I'm serious- and appreciate the fact that you basically get non-stop action coupled with serious, thought provoking philosophy. Terminator 2 is an intelligent, action packed, brilliantly directed epic.